This invention relates to a disposable diaper and a process for making the same.
Conventional disposable diapers are formed in its rear waist region with a pair of wings made of a nonwoven fabric. Such wings are formed with fastener sections serving to connect the front and rear waist regions to each other. The fastener sections are provided on inner surfaces thereof with adhesive zones or male members as component of mechanical fasteners so that these adhesive zones or male members may be releasably anchored on the front waist region and thereby the front and rear waist regions may be connected to each other.
The fastener sections, if they are arranged so as to extend outward from outer side edges of the wings in the circumferential direction, will be preferably folded back onto the inner surfaces of the respective wings and releasably anchored in order to avoid that these protruding fastener sections might adversely stand in the course from production of the diaper to actual use of the diaper by the consumer. However, use of the male member as the component of the mechanical fastener is often accompanied with an anxiety that the male member could not be anchored at a desired peel strength on the nonwoven fabric forming the inner surface of the wing and might be unintentionally separated apart from the wing in the course of handling the diaper.
Objects of this invention include providing a process for ensuring that fastener sections provided with male members are reliably and releasably anchored on the inner surfaces of respective wings of disposable diapers, and a disposable diaper made using such process.
According to this invention, there is provided a disposable diaper and a process for making the same.
According to one aspect of this invention, the disposable diaper includes a liquid-pervious topsheet, a liquid-impervious backsheet and a liquid-absorbent core disposed between these two sheets so as to configure a front waist region, a rear waist region and a crotch region extending between these two waist regions in a longitudinal direction of the diaper wherein the rear waist region is formed on transversely opposite sides thereof with wings extending outward in a circumferential direction intersecting the longitudinal direction and the wings are formed with fastener sections extending outward in the circumferential direction and provided on inner surfaces thereof with male members as components of mechanical fasteners.
According to this invention each of the wings has inner and outer surfaces of which at least the inner surface is formed with a nonwoven fabric; each of the fastener sections is folded a back onto the inner surface of the wing so that the male member may be opposed to the nonwoven fabric of the inner surface and a plurality of hooks forming the male member may be releasably engaged only with a portion of fibers forming the nonwoven fabric protruding from the inner surface toward the male member.
According to another aspect of this invention, there is further provided a process for making a disposable diaper composed of a front waist region, a rear waist region and a crotch region extending between these two waist regions in the longitudinal direction of the diaper, the rear waist region being formed on transversely opposite sides thereof with wings extending outward in a circumferential direction intersecting the longitudinal direction, the wings being formed with fastener sections extending outward in the circumferential direction and the fastener sections being folded back, with inner surfaces thereof inside, in the circumferential direction so that male members of mechanical fasteners attached to inner surfaces of the fastener sections may be in contact with inner surfaces of the wings.
The process according to this invention comprises steps of: forming inner and outer surfaces, at least said inner surfaces of said wings by nonwoven fabric; and locally pressing the nonwoven fabric from the outer surface toward the inner surface thereof in its region being in contact with the male members so that fibers forming the nonwoven fabric may partially protrude toward the male members and be releasably engaged only with a portion of a plurality of hooks forming the male members.